All are welcome to join us every Sunday morning, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have done. The doors are open to you to join us in the public worship of Jesus Christ.
To be a member however is a different matter, for that we expect you to believe certain things and act in ways that are right for a Christian. At Trinity we will wait until you have been coming at least 6 months before you can begin the process to be a member.
This involves you taking 6 classes with either the minister or an elder or both and then going through an interview with some of our elders.
At this interview you will be asked:
1. What you thought of the classes?
2. Is there anything in your life that would stop us from accepting you as a Christian?
3. What is the gospel and to include in your answer a reference to your understanding of sin, the cross and the role Jesus played in saving you?
4. Tell us the story of how the answers in question 3 became real to you.
Below are the class handouts we used in 2024
Class 1. Introduction and overview.
Night 1. Introduction – what are we are doing and why
Night 2. Absolute Fundamentals. – what must I believe to be a Christian?
Night 3. The Christian life – God’s law and the Christian’s freedom, and life in a Christian community
Night 4. Going on with God- Fighting sin, and growing in Assurance with the Means of grace.
Night 5. Going on with God 2 More grace- the sacraments
Night 6. Reformed distinctives (Tulip/Confessions and How we run things)
Night 7. Session interview and testimony night.
Hello! Welcome to our new communicant’s class. We are delighted to have ye with us tonight. Firstly a few practical things.
These classes will take at least an hour each night and no more than an hour and a half. So you will definitely be finished by at least 9 each week.
In these classes I will be talking a lot but ye will do some work and talk a little. That said feel free to interrupt me with a question at any time.
Now some of you are, transferring your membership and others are professing your faith in public for the first time. Both groups will be making some membership vows on the day. I will send you the vows during the week.
On the day that people become communicants we like to have a celebration in the halls afterwards. Anytime a church takes on new communicants it is a big day for that congregation, so our plan is to have a meal after the service and we’d love for ye to invite any friends or family that you have. Standing up in public, and declaring to the world that you are a Christian, is increasingly a radical thing, so we want to treat the day with the respect it deserves. That said, as you have we have some hall issues right now and if we take ye in at the end of December it will be a very low attended service so we may change things this time.
Tonight you are going to hear from me and Donal about how we came to be people who have faith in Jesus. I want you tonight to start thinking about your own “Christian story”. How you came to understand and believe the Jesus is your Lord and saviour. On the very last night of this course those of you who are not transferring will be interviewed by the elders and one of the things we will ask you is to share your own story with us. Now I’ll give you more information about that as the weeks go on but it’s good to start thinking about it now. By way of a help for you on this. Imagine if someone were to ask you ‘why are you a Christian’ and they also asked you ‘what is the gospel?’ How would you answer those two questions?
So first up tonight, to give you a taste of what an answer to this question looks like myself and Donal will give you a version in our own lives.
Short faith stories. Richie, and then Donal.
Before we start:
This is a Presbyterian church and…
Yes! This is a Presbyterian church. Our ministers and elders have to make a declaration when they get ordained, that they believe what all that is contained in a document called the Westminster confession of faith. This document has served as the statement of faith for Presbyterian churches all over the world for nearly 400 years. We will look at the WCF later on in the classes but for now the question you may have is, does becoming a member here mean that you have to agree with the distinctive things that Presbyterians believe and other Christians don’t? (And there are a few of those doctrines)
The short answer is no. The line I use often is: we need you to be a Christian, we’d like you to be a presbyterian. To put in another way; to be a member we need you to be a Christian, that is, in as far as we can tell, you have a credible profession of faith in Jesus but we don’t need you to be believe everything that Presbyterians do.
What this means practically for us now, is that as we go on in these classes, we will be explaining what it means to be a Christian AND the kinds of things you would hear in most Presbyterian churches. If you disagree with the fundamentals of the faith which are needed to be a Christian (and which we will look at the next night) you can’t be a true Christian in our view and so you can’t be a member. Or if you have ongoing moral failures that you refuse to repent of; similarly we couldn’t say in good conscience that you are a Christian and you certainly couldn’t be a member then either.
But in all of the classes you will also find uniquely Presbyterian ways of understanding the bible and Christian life. You don’t have to agree with these but you do have accept that these are the things that you will hear taught in this church. Again, to put it another way, we don’t require you to be believe everything Presbyterians do but we expect you to respect that we teach them here. If this is too much of an issue for you, then maybe membership with us is not for you.
Any q’s?
…this is also a unique church.
Similarly, as in all churches, there are some doctrines and practices about which there is much debate sometimes quite heated. Trinity is no different; in that the elders of our church takes some positions on some of these and not on others.
So, for example, (though it must be said we do not go on and on about these things), in this church you will hear, from time to time, either explicitly taught or assumed, things like: the sinfulness of gay marriage, abortion and euthanasia. You will hear that all though our denomination allows for the ordination of women, ministers don’t have to agree with this and your minister and elders do not believe that the God in his word teaches that women can be ordained. Similarly, some churches are very clear about which understanding of the bible’s teaching on the end-times a person should hold. We will not be so adamant about this topic in fact all 3 major views are acceptable in our church.
In the end you just need to know that that these things are taught in this church. You may not agree with us on them but you will be hearing about them.
Any Q’s?
What are we doing in this course?
We are really doing three things: 1. We want you to be blessed by God by taking communion with us 2. We want you to join this particular congregation and make it’s elders your elders. 3. We want to make sure you have the right to take communion, because the bible teaches that it is only for true Christians. Let’s look at those in reverse order.
Do you have a Credible Profession of faith?
Perhaps you have heard of this phrase before “credible profession of faith”. This is simply a declaration that you believe that Jesus is Lord (with all the other beliefs that that implies) but it also a declaration that is itself, believable. In other words, its one that is backed up by the kind of life that you lead, hence it is believable or it is credible.
Personal Conviction, Session Confirmation
Laying aside that sometimes people lie, they freely take the vows but they are actually lying, laying aside the fact that sometimes the leadership in churches are hypocrites or sometimes they are cowardly, and they either don’t care about whether your profession of faith is credible or not, or they are afraid to really seek out the truth and so, they let people into membership who shouldn’t be let in. Laying aside all those possibilites, it is the job of BOTH the elders of this church, and yourselves, to figure out if you have a credible profession of faith.
There are a few ways that we do this. Naturally enough there is the content of the course itself! If you don’t believe what we are teaching then please tell us! There is also the matter of you taking vows which we will look at in a bit but these classes help the elders of this church, be sure, that your profession is credible. Are we really, as best we can tell, and with as much charity and grace as the scriptures allow us, able to say “this person is a Christian” . We have been given a job by Christ to be your overseers (Heb 13:17) Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. So, we need to do it. It would be wrong for us to allow a person to make a vow we knew they were going to break and it would be wrong for us to allow one of our congregation to take communion if we thought they weren’t a Christian.
Taking an Oath and swearing a vow.
One thing we do to help make sure your profession of faith is credible is ask you to take vows. If you go through this class and are accepted a member of our church you will be expected to make a public confession of faith in the form of taking four vows[1]. Before we go any further let’s read them out.
1. Do you believe in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit? (I do)
2. Do you trust in Jesus Christ alone, as your Saviour from sin and as Lord of your life? (I do)
3. Depending on the grace of God:
• (i) Do you promise to live as a follower of Jesus Christ, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit? (I do)
• (ii) Do you commit as a communicant member of this congregation, to worship, serve, give and participate fully in its life and witness? (I do)
Any q’s on them?
When you are asked a question in public it’s a weighty thing to answer it honestly. It makes it more serious. In this case you are calling God as your witness that the things you say and promise are true. The bible teaches that are times when swearing an Oath or making a vow is the appropriate thing to do. Our churches doctrinal statement the Westminster Confession of faith says “in matters of weight and moment an oath is warranted by the Word of God.” And our church recons that becoming a member is such a moment.
Why is that? Well, there are a couple of elements to this. Firstly, when you take an Oath or vow you do so in the full knowledge that God will expect you to follow through and if you do, there are blessings and if you don’t God will discipline you. Secondly the seriousness of taking an Oath or vow before God encourages you to do what you are promising and it encourages you to really think about whether or not you can do what you are about to say or promise.
Lastly then taking an Oath or vow has the effect of lending credibility to your words. It helps those around you to believe that you really mean what you are saying. That’s why a witness in court swears an oath because the seriousness of it, pushes them to actually tell the truth and it helps the people around them to believe them.
As you will have picked by now, we only want people who have a genuine faith in Jesus to become members but it is hard to know the heart! People can be deceptive; indeed, people can deceive themselves! And so, this is a way to make you think about the decision you are making and to increase our certainty that your profession of faith is credible and that we should we accept you as a member. That’s why you make these vows because it helps both sides.
In the end, one thing we are working for in these classes is that as you learn about what constitutes a credible profession of faith, you, assuming you are not going to lie, would be able to say, yes, I believe this, I can stand and say what I need to say on the day. Or… you might say well I’m not so sure I believe that or I’m not so sure that I want to do that. In which case we’d have a conversation and see what the issue is and if it was really a barrier to becoming a communicant member.
Church authority, Church discipline and the keys of the Kingdom
Before we go on, we need to look at an important issue. Why do the elders get so involved in figuring out whether or not you have a credible profession of faith? Why don’t we just leave it between the person and God, why do even have membership at all? It’s not a phrase you will find in the New Testament.
Well, there are many reasons for all of these but underlying them all is that the New Testament clearly teaches the there are some in the kingdom of God and there are some who are not and God has given the powers of the keys of the kingdom, that is the power to let in or shut the door to kingdom of God, to the church (Matt 16:15-19, John 20:21-23).
So, you may have personal conviction that you are a Christian but it is the prerogative (and pleasure!) of the church to confirm that indeed you are a Christian. Membership of the church, both access too and removal from is something that Christ has given control of, to the church and its officers. And we need to talk about the role of officers in Christ church a little tonight before we go any further.
Can someone read out for us Chapter 30 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Read the one on the right as its in more modern language, after each paragraph I have a small explanation.
| Chapter XXX Of Church Censures I. The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of his church, hath therein appointed a government, in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate. | Chapter 30 Church Discipline 1. The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of his church, has appointed a government in it, to be administered by church officers, distinct from the civil authorities. |
Ok, so obviously the supreme authority of Christ’s church is the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the King and Head of His Church (Isaiah 9:6-7; Matthew 28:18). But under him the next level of authority in Christ’s church are church officers whom Christ has appointed to govern His people. These are your elders, and your minister. Whilst the Irish government has a say over us in everyday life. The church has authority in our lives too that is different and separate but just as real. (Ephesians 4:11-13; Titus 1:4-9; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13; 1 Timothy 5:17-18).
| II. To these officers the keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed; by virtue whereof, they have power, respectively, to retain, and remit sins; to shut that kingdom against the impenitent, both by the Word, and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the gospel; and by absolution from censures, as occasion shall require. | 2. To these church officers he has committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For this reason they have authority to retain and to remit sins, to shut the kingdom against the unrepentant both by the Word and by censures, and to open it to repentant sinners by the ministry of the gospel and by releasing from censures, as the occasion requires. |
So, if we have officers with power the question then is what kind of power do these church officers have? Well Christ calls this authority or power “the keys of the kingdom” (Matthew 16:15-19). Because he describes it in this way it is apparent that their function is to open and close the door to the kingdom. This is just another way to say that we can shut the kingdom to the unrepentant, and to open the kingdom to the repentant. (John 20:21-23; Matthew 16:19; 18:15-20). Or again to put even another way. If you turn from your sins to Christ- you can come in- if you don’t- you cant.
So it’s the elders of the church’s job to make sure you are a Christian and to welcome you into the Kingdom of God. The other part of this role that God has given the elders is disciplinary action. Just as we can welcome you in we can also ask you to leave. There is a back door as well as a back door! For the sake of completeness lets quickly look at this side of church authority too.
| III. Church censures are necessary, for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren, for deterring of others from the like offenses, for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump, for vindicating the honour of Christ, and the holy profession of the gospel, and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the church, if they should suffer his covenant, and the seals thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders. | 3. Church discipline is necessary for reclaiming and gaining fellow Christians who are guilty of offenses, for deterring others from committing similar offenses, for purging the leaven which might infect the whole lump, for vindicating the honour of Christ and the holy profession of the gospel, and for averting the wrath of God which might justly fall on the church if it should allow his covenant and its seals to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders. |
So we can see there that Church censures (or church discipline) accomplishes at least five purposes: (1) for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren (Jude 1:22-23; 1 Corinthians 5:5); (2) for the deterring of others from similar offences (1 Timothy 5:20); (3) for purging out the leaven that might infect the whole lump (1 Corinthians 5:6-7); (4) for vindicating the honour of Christ and the holy profession of the Gospel (Matthew 7:6); and (5) for preventing the wrath of God (Revelation 2:5). Another way of putting all of this is that discipline aims to and can: bring back people who have fallen away, deter others from doing likewise, helps cleans out the problems that this behaviour has caused, honours Christ and his gospel and stops God from punishing the whole church for tolerating that which should not be tolerated. .
Any q’s?
We go on
| IV. For the better attaining of these ends, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition; suspension from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a season; and by excommunication from the church; according to the nature of the crime, and demerit of the person. | 4. For the better attaining of these purposes, the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition, by suspension from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a time, and by excommunication from the church, according to the nature of the offense and the degree of the person’s guilt. |
There are three basic forms of church discipline which are given to us in Scripture, three forms of church discipline that increase in severity: (1) admonition (1 Thessalonians 5:12; 1 Timothy 5:20); (2) suspension from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a time (1 Corinthians 5:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14-15); and (3) excommunication from the Church (Matthew 18:17; Titus 3:10-11).
Talking about Church discipline may seem odd at this stage but it is a part of church authority and its good to let you know now rather than be surprised by it later! For now we can say that the church officers have the power to confirm that you have faith! We are the ones with the keys of the kingdom, we say we see your faith, and you need to trust that God has given us the authority to judge that.
I think in fairness most people would see that as a big heavy handed. “ooh the church confirms I have faith, who do they think they are!” but the implication of the scriptures are clear – Jesus has given us this job and also, do remember that this function of church authority can encourage as well as challenge. Make no mistake they’re will be times when you feel like your faith is useless, or your faith is dead and it could be me preaching or one of the elders talking to you that will say to you, with the authority of God, hold on there I know you are a Christian, I know God loves you.
Belonging to this church only!
So then, the second thing we are doing in this course is asking you to the elders of this church your elders. This doesn’t take much explanation. Elders are God’s way of running the church, and he has appointed some to be your elders. There is no such thing as a solo-Christian who doesn’t belong to any church. You must belong to one. Similarly, those men who have been elected elders in Trinity are not elders over every Christian in the world! And should you become a member here they will be your elders.
Coming to the Lord’s and the ordinary Christian life.
Now we are nearly finished tonight. The last thing I want to talk about is what are we actually inviting you to be a part off? Well.. .we want you to take communion. Bread and wine, symbols of the Lord death, with the other members of this church. But why?
Well, Communion is a gift from God to help those baptized members of God’s church who have come to faith to grow in their faith and in the grace of God.
Now we will talk about the sacraments and Christian living in due course but for now I want you to see that there is help from God to live the Christian life.
And we need help for two reasons, one is that is that life can be hard, there are troubles to be faced, there will be times when we give into temptation, there will times when temptation comes out of nowhere and it comes strong. There will be times when the love of God is almost tangible and there will be times when we feel nothing. There will be times when doing what God wants us to do seems impossible. So the Christian life can be hard and we need help. Secondly we need help because even though you know you are saved, our assurance of that salvation will increase or decrease from time to time and you will wrestle with doubts, not just ‘am I saved?’ but also, ‘does God really love me?’, ‘am I really forgiven?’, ‘do I really have the power of the Holy Spirit?’ ‘Do my failures in resisting sin mean im not a Christian?’ and so for the reason of increasing our assurance of God’s love and our salvation , God provides help for us.
What are these helps? Well, there’s the bible for starters! I aim to read it every day. In fact, I aim to worship God by myself and with my family using the bible every day and with my church family once a week. The bible is God’s words to us, don’t neglect it! There is also our baptism. When Martin Luther was depressed and doubting his faith, he would say to himself I am baptised man! Baptism is a shorthand for the truth of all the promises attached to it, and when we remember that we are baptised it encourages us to believe all those promises. God has also given us prayer, we can talk to God about anything, and we can request anything from him. We also get a new family- the Christians in your church, they have to love you! they have to look out for you, and they have to pray for you. And of course, we get to hear God’s word preached by a man called to do exactly that just for you. And then lastly, we get to take communion.
And then you’ll go out into the week and try to live by faith for his glory and in accordance with all that you have been thought by God’s word up till that point. And then the following Sunday you’ll come back and do it all over again. And some weeks the elders and your brothers and sisters will meet you to encourage to live this life all the more and sometimes they will challenge on how you are doing that. And if you really step out line, if you continue to ignore what the minister and the elders and your friends are saying to you, we might say you can’t take communion with us and if it gets really bad we might say we don’t think you are a Christian at all.
But assuming it’ll never get to the point where elders say that…for the most part you’ll come here every week, hear God’s word and all the promises and commands within it, you’ll take communion with us, you’ll occasionally see others getting baptised and remember the fact of your own, and all the promises it points to, you’ll meet your brothers and sisters who will encourage you and you’ll go back out into the week to do what God wants you to do. And every week that you do that, your assurance of your salvation will grow, your holiness will grow, your ability to follow God’s law will grow, your sense that Jesus loves you, died for you and has truly forgiven you will grow.
And that’s the ordinary Christian life and you’ll live this life very week until you die, and when you die and go to heaven, you’ll see me and all the other Christians and the Lord Jesus himself and we are going to have a meal, where we will eat the best bread in the world and drink the best wine in the universe and thereafter live in presence of God forever.
Taking communion is (amoungst other things!) a sign that you believe all this and you want to be known as someone who believes all that.
Do you believe it?
[1] An oath is to promise something with God as your witness that your statement is true. A vow is a promise to act in a certain way. Strictly speaking you are swearing two oaths and making two vows.
Class 2. The fundamental beliefs of a Christian
Prayer
So tonight, we are looking at the absolute fundamentals of our faith, the things that we cover tonight are the most important things for us to believe and to trust in as Christians. A true Christian could disagree with none of what we say tonight.
We need also to talk about God’s covenants – they are agreements between God and man or you could say promises or deals that God makes and on this topic some Christians do disagree with what they mean and you might as well.
But what I’m mostly going to talk about are the things you have to believe in if you want to be a member in our church and they are teaching about : God, Man, Sin, Jesus and Faith. If you have a problem with what I say on any of these that could be a very big issue for you.
So, really tonight is about the gospel, the good news about Jesus. At the end of the course we will be asking you to answer a question: How would you respond if someone asked you “what is the message of Jesus?” or ” what is the gospel?”
The main reason we do this is so we know you have a good grasp of the gospel. The most important thing in life, and I mean this in all sincerity is that we accept the gospel ourselves, it’s not who we marry or what job we have or our health or even the health of the ones we love. The most important thing is that we trust Jesus and get to spend eternity with him. So, if you don’t know the gospel and understand all its main ingredients how can you believe it?
So that all said, the first thing I want ye to do tonight, is to take 5 minutes and write down for yourself, I’m not going to look at these, write down for yourself the answer to the question “what is the gospel?”. And then at the end of the night you are going to able to see how you did, was there any gaps, is there anything I need to think about. So this is just for yourself. It’s not a test.
God
First thing we need to talk about is God. I think everyone agrees that the idea of God is amazing, the non-believer might say that whatever else might be out there, there is no creature on this planet or in history, there is no idea in literature, that comes near to God. And it’s true the most people, in fact most people throughout history have looked at the world around them and have come to the conclusion – there must be a god or gods. Atheists have always been the extreme minority in history even today.
And all of this is to be expected because the bible itself says that the presence of God is evident from nature and also that some basic belief is put into the hearts of all people. However, there are many things that Christians believe about God that are not obvious to everyone and so we need the bible to tell us about God in in as much detail as he wants us to know. The bible of course also lets us know what he wants us to do in this life (and we’ll talk about that next week) but for now let’s focus on what the bible teaches us about God.
Ok to help us do that I’ve got a few verses for us all to look at and see what does the bible say God is? (give hand-outs) (give each participant a section of the verses to look at and get feedback)
All of those verses came from a question in one of our catechisms.
Q7. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit,1 in and of himself infinite in being,2 glory,3blessedness,4 and perfection;5 all-sufficient,6 eternal,7unchangeable,8 incomprehensible,9 every where present,10almighty,11 knowing all things,12 most wise,13 most holy,14 most just,15 most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.16
That is our God. That is the God we must believe in. Because that is the God we find in the bible. Is there anything there new or surprising to you?
The other thing we have to believe in is that God is a Trinity. This is one of the things that makes us different from Muslims and Jews.
Christians believe that there is only one God but also that there are 3 persons in God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit. These 3 are God but there is only one God. It’s hard to get your head around this at times.
There are two things that have helped me as I’ve thought about this.
Firstly, the reason we accept the Trinity is that the bible talks about each person of the Trinity as if they were God.
The divinity of the Father is widely accepted but the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit is often misunderstood and of course a lot of sects or cults will have, at the centre of their message, a wrong view of the divinity of Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
The reason we accept a trinitarian understanding of the God is that when we read the bible we see that while each member of the Trinity is distinguished by their personal properties they are always given the attributes and the names worthy of God and they all do things that only God can do and they all get worship that is only worthy of God. Sometimes the bible is very clear about their divinity. Can someone read for us Rev 1:1 and 8 and 18. It is Jesus who is speaking. And who is called the Lord God. Can someone read for us, Acts 5:3-4. Here we see the bible show us that it considers the Holy Spirit as God.
The other thing that has helped me in thinking about the trinity is that it better reveals God as he works in my life. Many Christians accept the Trinity as a fact of scripture but see little relevance for us in it. This is an unfortunate reality because actually each person of the Trinity has a different role in our lives. We don’t have too much time to talk about this tonight but I want to leave you with this idea,
the Father appoints me to salvation: Jesus says in Johns Gospel that “he will not lose any of the sheep his father has given him”, so it’s the father who chooses those who are saved I frequently thank the Father for choosing me and pray that he would choose people I pray for,
the Son accomplishes salvation: in other words, it’s Jesus who died on that cross, Jesus who was born a man and who died and was resurrected for me. We can in prayer thank Jesus for doing this
and it’s the Spirit who applies salvation: in other words, after we are saved we need power to live for God and it’s the Spirit who uses the knowledge of the Gospel, uses the Word in my life to do just that and it’s the Spirit who gives me power to fight sin in my life. We also believe the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son, which is why we involve the Father and Jesus in our prayers for everyday living. Asking one of them to send the Spirit for power or wisdom.
To sum up then, the Father appoints, the Son accomplishes and the Spirit applies. In each stage of our salvation, we see each member of the Trinity taking center stage, it’s equally true of course to say that God does all these things. God choose me, God saved me and God changes me and grows me in my understanding and assurance of salvation.
Man
Each one of us here tonight is a part of mankind! We are alive but we are not animals, we are also not angels. Being a part of mankind is a special deal. The reason for this is that the bible says we are created in God’s image. This means that all of us, in some way, reflect something, of who God is. And we do this in ways, that no other part of the creation, does. Traditionally our church has said that being made in the image of God means we knew God, we were righteous, we were holy and we had the law of God inscribed on our heart. Does that sentence make sense?
So we knew him meaning we had a relationship with him, we were righteous meaning we only did good; we were holy meaning there was nothing bad in our nature, and we had the law written on our hearts meaning we knew what God wanted us to do all the time.
It’s here that I want to talk a little bit about covenants for the first time. Has anyone ever heard of this word? A covenant is basically an agreement between two people or groups with blessings guaranteed for at least one side. Presbyterian theologians have said that God made a covenant with Adam: we call it the ‘covenant of works’. This is an agreement that God made with Adam at creation, before the Fall, in which God offered blessings to Adam (and the human race in Adam) if he met the terms of this agreement. The agreement was this, to Adam he said serve and guard the garden and don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil or if you do you will die. Further-more had Adam done his job he would gone to eaten from the tree of life and live forever in perfection and after that be unable to lose that status. But as we know he failed and Sin entered the scene.
Sin
What is sin?
I’ve heard many different ways of defining sin. Some would say it’s any way we put created things before God, it’s anything that we worship rather than God, it’s any way we look to things or people for life and comfort rather than God. It’s any action that leads to spiritual death. These are all definitions that have some merit but when we look to scripture God always ties sin with breaking God’s laws. Can someone read for me John 14:21 and 1 John 5:2-3? 21 The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and follow His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
There we see the scriptures tying obedience to God’s law. This is something we will talk about more next week but for now I want to give you a definition of sin as, any breaking of, or failure to do, any of God’s laws.
The bible teaches us that after Adam failed to do what God had commanded him, he sinned, he broke an explicit command of God and failed to do a number of commands. The result of this has been a catastrophe for all of mankind. What would you say has the result has been?
Ok. Thanks for those ideas. But let’s make it a bit personal. I want you to spend some time looking at yourselves. Again, I wont ask you to share this. I’m going to give you this handout from our catechism on the 9th and 10th commandments. I want you to take a few minute looking at what they say is needed and forbidden by these commands and see how you are doing. Now be honest. This is between you and God.
Sooo, a simple question. Are you a sinner? Of course we are! We see the results not just all around us but in our own lives as well.
However, the biggest problem is that because of ours sins we are born separated from God. God is holy. We are not! He cannot have fellowship with us like he did with Adam before he sinned. Now we need a saviour
Why? Well let’s look at the catechism again
Q152: What does every sin deserve at the hands of God?
A152: Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty,[1] goodness,[2] and holiness of God,[3] and against his righteous law,[4] deserves his wrath and curse,[5] both in this life,[6] and that which is to come;[7] and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ.[8]
1. James 2:10-11 2. Exod. 20:1-2 3. Hab. 1:13; Lev. 10:3; 11:44-45 4. I John 3:4; Rom. 7:12
5. Eph. 5:6; Gal. 3:10 6. Lam. 3:39; Deut. 28:15-68 7. Matt. 25:41 8. Heb. 9:22; I Peter 1:18-19
So, sin creates problems around us, within us and most importantly between us and God. No-one wants to go to Hell. No-one wants to go before the judgement seat of God and fail to pass. And so we need a saviour. Fair enough?
Christ.
At last we come to the hero of our story! Here is where we need to talk about our second covenant. This time is the Covenant of Grace. God decides to fulfil what Adam and us failed to do by sending a substitute to do the job on our behalf. To put it another way, the Messiah -Jesus- fulfils the covenant of works on our behalf. Where Adam failed and all of us also failed, Christ succeeds. And if we are united to Jesus we will succeed too. Thus we can say we are saved by grace alone, not by works but by grace alone through faith alone. This is the covenant of Grace.
Now who knows what Grace is? Well grace is an un warranted gift, an undeserved favour, it’s a pure gift, there is nothing we can do to earn it. That is why we say that salvation is by grace alone. Jesus did the work for us and gave us the results for free. All that is required of us is faith in him. Now will talk about that in a minute but let’s look at how the Covenant of Grace unfolds through the bible.
How it works out is this: straight after Adam sins we see our first mention of the Messiah. Can someone read Gen 3:15. Here is the inauguration of the gospel. The devil who has done so much damage is threatened that someone is coming who will crush him. From here on out in history those who belong to God will trust in this coming messiah who will sort things out for them.
The rest of the Old Testament is essentially an extended discussion that reveals more and more about what this messiah will do and who he will be, for instance we have talked a lot about law tonight, many of ye will know that there are many other laws besides the 10 commandments in the Old Testament, these ceremonial laws covering Old Testament worship and religion and the civil laws that governed Israel were joined to this moral law as part of God’s plan to explain Jesus’s work in
advance and to regulate the life of God’s people, to preserve a distinct group through which the Messiah could come, those ceremonial laws were fulfilled and the civil laws expired (as they are stated at least) because their temporary role in God’s plan came to completion in Jesus our Messiah.
So everything from Gen 3:15 out points in some way to Jesus. Especially his actions on the cross, and his sacrificial death. In the Old Testament the High priest would once a year offer a sacrifice on behalf of the sins of the people of Israel. This is both a prefigure-ment of what Christ would do and a teaching method for the Israelites at the time who would have been thought by this that their messiah would be someone who would make a perfect sacrifice. Jesus indeed tells us that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of my day! (John 8:56)
Because of our failure to keep God’s laws, and because we, like Adam, still need to be perfect, we need a sacrifice to pay for our sins. As it turns out, only the sacrifice of a God-man can make up for what we have done, because God, who as we have seen earlier, is infinite in many ways including holiness and righteousness, must see that justice is done. All sins need payment including ours. This is why the messiah had to die.
Jesus is not only our sacrifice for our sins, he is a priest like the priests of the Old Testament and so he goes between us and God to both carrt our requests to God and represent God to us, he is a prophet like the prophets of the Old Testament telling us by word and deed how we need to live and lastly, he is our king like the kings of the Old Testament but ruling us, like only he would, with grace and mercy and justice.
Jesus is the saviour we need, a sacrifice for sinners, a priest for the needy, a prophet for the confused and a king for rebels
Faith
Last thing to talk about is: how do we avail of this great salvation? The answer is by faith alone. As Paul says we are saved by faith not by works (Eph 2:8) or elsewhere he says ‘he saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy’ (Titus 3:5) or take the publican and the pharisee story (Lk 18:14), the publican ‘went home justified’ that day, says Jesus, because he had turned to God in faith. So we are saved by faith in God not by what you do, nor by what you avoid, nor is it by doing good things that come from your religious belief. It is by faith alone.
Beware though, that we are saved by faith does not mean that faith is something that we do, thus in someway we can say we contribute to our salvation. This is not so, rather the bible teaches that Faith is God’s chosen instrument, we are saved through faith, the Spirit of God moves us to believing and through that faith we are saved. Even our faith is a gift of God. This teaching is the doctrine of election. We are not going to look at this idea in detail but it is a doctrine that Presbyterians emphaise because it’s emphasised in the bible! God choses some from before the beginning of time to be saved. Without this election, the Spirit will not work in a person to bring them to faith. God’s election demonstrates his love, while his passing over of some demonstrates his justice. This is a doctrine that has caused many debates over the years but if it’s in the bible it must be taught.
But what does faith in Jesus look like? Well firstly it’s important to know faith is not a mere intellectual exercise it’s not just knowledge about God. Instead, we say here that faith is an assent too, a knowledge of and a resting in Jesus. Let’s break that down.
There is a knowledge of Jesus that is included in faith. Though we can’t understand how God is able to save infants and the intellectually disabled, his usual means of salvation includes an element of knowing things about our Messiah. For instance, all that we have talked about in the previous section about Jesus. It’s not possible to be saved if don’t know who Jesus is or what he has done.
Assent to something is an intellectual even at time emotional act, so the knowledge that we have of Jesus must be assented too, you got to agree with it! a person can’t be a Christian if they don’t agree with what is presented in the Gospel.
And lastly there is a resting aspect of our faith. Resting is the act of our will that causes us to trust in Jesus and all his work for us on the cross. He is our priest, our king and our prophet. We need no-one else, we need not rely on anything we have done or anything that we have avoided instead we rest in Jesus alone for our salvation.
The gospel folks in a way is very simple. God is holy we are not. Our sinfulness breaks our relationship with him, and if we don’t find a way of sorting it out we are in danger of going to hell when we die. But thanks be to God that he sent his Son Jesus to die for us, and if we have faith in him, we can know our sins are forgiven, the blessings of being in relationship with him are restored and we can know for sure that we will go to heaven and not hell when we die. All of this is a free gift all we need to do is have faith in Jesus.
Now one last thing. Our Catholic friends and neighbours are taught that Adam was given a special gift in the garden to enable him to be perfect, so by implication he wasn’t truly perfect. After the fall they say he lost this gift, but retained some of his original goodness whereas protestants say that we have been corrupted in every area of our lives and souls. So therefor while Roman Catholicism definitely does teach about sin they don’t teach that it is as bad and as pervasive as we do and furthermore they teach that man now earns his salvation by co-operation with God. For Catholicism the bad news isn’t as bad and thus the good news isn’t as good.
Catholicism also teaches that faith (especially the resting aspect of it) is a work i.e. something that we do and thus that we are saved in part by what we do. But this is why we say faith is God’s chosen instrument. It is through or by faith we are saved. Ultimately its Jesus’s work that saves us but through faith we gain the results of his work. The truth is, despite what our conversions stories might sometimes appear as, we didn’t choose God in our own strength, we were as scripture says ‘dead in our sins’ (Eph 2:1) this means that we can’t drum up this faith in our own strength. God has to give it to us, God calls us to him and we come to faith. Our hope is that everyone of you have felt that call and are now responding to him with faith. Through faith then God unites us to Jesus and the Holy Spirit applies all the work of his sacrifice to us. Hence, we can say we are saved by faith in Jesus. This is the heart of the gospel, not that we work with God to earn our way to heaven but that it is a true gift to God’s people.
Class 3. The Christian life.
Law, freedom, wisdom and life in a Christian community
Introduction
Start by getting folks to read the extra handouts on the 59 one another’s and SC q’s on 10 commandments
So far we’ve looked at some foundational stuff and asked the question ‘Why are doing this class at all? Well we expect you to stand up in public and declare your faith in Jesus- that’s why!. Then last time we looked at the absolute fundamentals of Christianity, the existence of God, the reality and consequences of sin in our lives and the good news of the gospel -which is that we can be reconciled to God, have forgiveness of our sins and assurance of eternal life with him.
Clearly being a Christian means we believe some things that many in our country don’t. But what does living this Christian life look like? Is there a distinctly Christian way of living? Absolutely there is! But if there is, then how do we know what to do?
Well as have seen so far, the Spirit of God brings us to faith and we start to believe in Jesus but another thing that happens when we start believing is that God’s word comes alive to us. The bible takes on far more importance in our lives and speaks to us like never before. As result the bible tells us or teaches us what to do and what to believe. And as we believe more of what the bible teaches and do more of what it commands we become more and more like Jesus himself. As John the Baptist said. “I must decrease he must increase.”
Of course the Christian life isn’t just dry obedience to commands, prayer for example is an essential part of the Christian life too , and when it comes to the question of what to do we should of course regularly ask God for wisdom and for clarity when engaging with his word. We will talk about prayer later on in the course when we are looking at how God helps us to lead this life but tonight let’s first look at what God commands us to do.
Moral law
God is good. And if God is good then everything that is morally right comes from him. Furthermore if God tells us to do anything, even if we can’t see the reason why we should or for what purpose, the basic point remains- God is good! We know he is good therefore whatever he tells us to do is so also.
The laws we find in the bible then are based in God’s character of goodness and if you wanted to know what to do as a Christian, it would be fair to say that you must live in accordance with God’s law.
Now you say, well hold on, firstly, I know there are heaps of laws in the bible and a lot of them don’t make sense to me. Well let’s talk about that.
Most theologians have said that there are 3 main types of laws, Ceremonial law, relating to OT worship and sacrifices, Civil law relating to life during the times of the Israelite nation and then there is what is called the moral law. These are moral precepts like don’t kill don’t steal love your neighbour love God etc etc. So three types of laws: moral ceremonial or civil types of laws.
Let’s take a look at each one of these three.
The ceremonial law, which is almost completely found in the first 5 books of the Old Testament, had a function during its time to serve as a guide for the Israelites to be able to worship God properly and to help them make atonement for sins. Now that Christ has come, where he died and paid the price for sins these laws are fulfilled and the temple system for forgiveness and worship is no longer needed. That doesn’t mean you can pass by them when you are reading them, because if you study them you will learn more about what Jesus has done for you and how he can be worshipped properly.
The next group is the civil laws, these regulated everyday Israelite life. They were an application of God’s moral laws to everyday life at that time and today we deal with these a little differently. They have expired along with nation of ancient Israel but the underlying principles in them are still applicable to us today. And so just as with the ceremonial laws, we can kind of reverse engineer each law and find out what is the moral principle underneath it and then ask the question, what does this look like in 21st century Ireland?. For example, Paul in 1 Cor 5:13 refers to the death penalty during Israelite times as his justification for the need to excommunicate a repeat offender in the church. (Question: do you know what excommunication is?) Right, so Paul is clearly not saying you need to kill the person for their sin but at some stage you do need to ask them to leave the church. The Civil law in the Old Testament was – you were removed from the people of God. The moral principle of removing people from God’s community still applies.
Ok so, ceremonial law teaches us about Jesus and his work. Civil law we look for the underlying moral principle and then lastly there is the group of laws that affects us the most: The moral law.
What is the moral law? Well simply put it’s the outworking of the principles of loving God and loving people. The bible has many many commands that come under this heading. Reformed theologians have always said the best summary of them are the so called Ten Commandments. They are the best place for us to start when we want to find out what to do in this Christian life. As you go on in your Christian walk you will see that every moral precept and command in the bible is either about loving God or loving people and at the same time they can all be associated with one or more of the ten commandments, a Christian who wants to be holy and please God will do well to study the Ten Commandments.
Lets take a minute to go through the ten of them and see how they together they are effectively a summary of all that God wants us to do.
(Get different people to read the regular text the text in brackets and the underlined)
1st commandment = I am the Lord your God you shall have no other God’s before me (whom we worship) or the object of True worship
2nd commandment =You shall not make for me any graven images (How we worship) or the manner of true worship, the way we approach God
3rd commandment = You shall not take the Lord your God’s name in vain (Reverence for God) or the attitude of true worship
4th commandment = Honour the Sabbath (When to enter God’s rest) or the time of true worship
5th commandment = Honour your father and mother (Authority) or Obedience to God given authority
6th commandment = You shall not kill (Life) or Respect for God’s image in everyone
7th commandment = You shall not commit adultery (Sexual Purity) or the sanctity of marriage
8th commandment = You shall not steal (Stewardship of goods) or the sanctity of property
9th commandment = You shall not bear false witness (Truthfulness) or the sanctity of speech
10th commandment = You shall not covet (Contentment) or the rule of contentment
Ok so can you see how each commandment is like a heading for areas of obedience in our lives? By way of example, the bible says we should avoid drunkenness, being drunk is not good for you or your body thus its breaks the 6th commandment, it also makes you less capable of work thus less able to earn a good wage and you might be sent home thus both breaking the 8th. It can lead to sexual sin as your inhibitions are lessened thus breaking the 7th commandment and breaking it is a disobeying a direct command thus breaks the first commandment to put God first.
Our churches shorter catechism uses the 10 commandments to teach us what the Christian life looks like. I want you to take some time to read through these. Direct back to the SC hand outs And then I want you to answer 2 questions.
- What commandment (s) are you breaking when you eat too much food? [i]
- And what commandment(s) are you breaking when you don’t pray as much as you should? [ii]
The point of all this talk about the law is not to make you better analysts of sin and obedience and certainly not of others peoples sin! The point is to show the Christian life is one of obedience to God’s commands. His law. Sometimes people react to this and say “all we need is love”. Sometimes this is rather poorly equated to whatever our own definition of love is, now most Christians know that is not enough and that however we define love it must be connected to what the bible teaches. Ok, but then some Christians will say that we should only be looking to Christ to tell us how to love. They call this the law of love or the law of Christ. Jesus does indeed summarise the whole of the moral life as love the lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself. But in other places Jesus also tells us that he has not come to abolish the law (Mat 5:17) And Paul says in Rom 13:10 that love is the fulfilment of the law and in Hebrews (8:10 + 10:16) we are told that under the New Covenant God will write the law on our hearts. So while it is true that love is summary of the 10 commandments if you want to know how to love, you got to know the law. There is always a connection between the two. The Christian life is one of imitating Christ, that is true, it is one of love that is also true but what does that look like practically? Obeying the commands of God.
What about “Gospel living”? Is that not a better way to talk about the Christian life? Well not quite. The gospel is a noun. Its news that has happened and affect us. In return we must living a thankful obedient life! Gospel however is never in the NT an adjective. The adjectival use of gospel often confuses the law with the gospel. Though the context of each individual use must be taken into consideration, it safe to say that if the minister says he hopes the congregation will spend their week carrying out their “gospel mission” or their “gospel work,” it really means he hopes they will go out and perform good works. Yet, that is not the gospel—it is the law. That is not to deny the goodness or necessity of good works in the lives of Christians. We say “amen” along with the Psalmist when he writes, “Oh, how I love your law! (Ps 119:97)” Yet, the gospel is the good news about the accomplished work of Christ on our behalf. While we were dead in our sins and trespasses, Christ died for us. He has raised us from death to life and clothed us in his robes of righteousness. By all means, Christians should be exhorted to perform good works as fruit and evidence of their faith. But that is not the gospel.
Freedom and wisdom
Freedom
Another thing we need you to know for the Christian life is that no Christian is under an obligation to do anything other than the bible teaches. That might seem a bit to strange to say, but there are plenty of things that Christians say are the law of God but really, they are only an application of the law in a certain time and place or maybe they are not even that.
For example, there was a time when card playing was forbidden by Christians but is there any way we can say that bible teaches this? No. In the presbyterian church we say that anything that is not in God’s word or is only an inference from the bible cannot be something that we, as your elders, hold you too. We can’t bind your conscience in these things.
The two best examples are the catholic church’s instance on avoiding meat on Fridays as an application of the command about fasting. Is fasting commanded in the bible? Yes, but are we told to fast every Friday and specifically by avoiding meat? No. The other is the Anglican church’s one time instance that one must kneel when taking communion. It may be respectful to do so and you may feel that is appropriate. But is kneeling clearly taught in the bible? No.
Another example that is less clear is drinking alcohol , it may be that in your situation it’s not good for you to drink alcohol given that many around you have a weakness for it and you may tempt them by drinking which would hinder their own ability to work (thus breaking the 8th commandment and the 6th ) or maybe it just harms them (thus breaking the 6th commandment) , or they themselves might think tis wrong to drink alcohol and by you drinking in front of them you tempt them to break the first commandment through their own disobedience…all these things may be true but you would still be right to say that alcohol is not forbidden by the bible and you are free to drink it.
In the end you need to know, you stand before God, yes, he has given us men to be our elders and they do have some authority over our lives but ultimately, we must do only what God has told to us to do. We are free from the commands of men where those commands contravene God’s word and we are free from accepting other people’s applications if we don’t think we have to do it ourselves.
How to make decisions- Wisdom
Another important topic in living the Christian life is the fact there are many areas of life that the bible doesn’t give clear teaching on. The bible doesn’t tell us what job to take or who to marry and yet these are very important decisions.
This leads into one more thing we need to talk about. This is one of those “we-need-you-to-be-a-Christian-we’d-like-you-to-be-a-Presbyterian” things, so you don’t have to sign up to this bit, in fact you may well disagree with it. This topic is really about guidance- how to find out what to do. Now we will look at prayer another night but certainly a lot of decisions in life need to be made after prayer (and of course seeking good advice from other Christians). But quite a lot of Christians will make decisions based on what could be called spirit-led-feelings. This is where we claim to know to God’s will for our lives in any circumstance, through impressions drawn from things happening around you, or through intuition, or even direct personal revelation from in your head.
Now in real life we do indeed use impressions and intuition or our gut to make decisions, people often operate at an instinctive level and that’s fine. But sometimes Christians will label these impressions and gut feelings as being a prompt from the Holy Spirit- now of course in the providence of God the Spirit leads us to do many things but the trouble with saying that this thought or feeling is from the Holy Spirit, is that we simply don’t know if that is true. In fact we have no right to say that those impressions are God speaking to us. God tells us through Moses in (Deut 29:29) that the secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. The scriptures are clear revelation from God and they are the only revelation from God. So, they are the only thing that we can say IS the voice of God.
The interesting thing is that sometimes, these feelings that we label as the voice of God, prompt us to do what turns out to be the right thing or at least a good thing. But, just because the action in question was right one doesn’t mean that God gave you a personal revelation to tell you what to do. You made a choice that turned out good- good! But God didn’t tell you to do that- you made a choice based a number of things and it turned out to be a good, that is the most we can say about it.
How then, can we make our way through this life if we don’t depend on spirit led feelings ?
It’s simple enough actually.
- If it’s taught in the bible then I got to do it.
- If it is forbidden in the bible then I definitely must not to do it.
- When the bible teaches me a principle e.g. love your neighbour – I need God’s wisdom on how to be obedient to that principle in any situation
- Where the bible does not directly address an issue important to you – firstly I need wisdom to know what biblical principles apply in this situation and then I need even more wisdom to know what to actually do.
Wisdom is gained through the passage of time as we seek to follow Jesus and learn about what obedience actually is, through prayer, through reading the wisdom literature found in the bible and through listening to the elders in our church. We like the idea that God would give us personal direct revelation to guide our decisions but not so much the idea that God would have us wrestle in prayer and look for wisdom about the same decisions.
Wisdom is essential in knowing God’s will. Getting wisdom is not easy. It takes practice. You will fail. You will struggle. If it were easy, everyone would have it and it seems obvious that not everyone has it! That’s why God gave us an entire collection of axioms, a book of Proverbs, to see what wisdom looks like in daily life.
Very often people seek special revelations from God when it comes to things in the fourth category above. i.e issues in our personal life that we’d love to know what God thinks about. What job should I take, who should I marry, should I talk to that person over there! If you’re not good with your hands, perhaps you shouldn’t be a tradesman. If you’re not good with numbers you probably shouldn’t go into business or banking. You don’t need a special revelation from God to know those things. If no-one likes the person you are going out with perhaps you should hold on off on marrying them. If you do or do not talk to that person over there- it doesn’t matter! Get on with your day, or do go and talk to them, the worst that could happen is they reject or ignore you.
Folks, follow your gut if you must, seek guidance, pray, make decisions and stand behind them but don’t say the Spirit told you to do this! He didn’t! Let me add that sometimes people think this is a bit too heavy handed but quite apart from us having no right to claim as God’s voice our own feelings, the danger is that if you start calling the decisions you make as being from God, then you could end up justifying some really serious sin as being from God just because you feel really strongly that its right. Many divorces have this element in it. “I felt really strongly he was the right one” ! He wasn’t. Stay with your first spouse.
Life in the community.
Lastly one of the main things we need to look under the heading of the Christian life is being a community of Christians. How does all this talk of law impact our lives as Christians together? Let’s look at our church confession of faith again.
CH 26. Of the Communion of Saints
I. All saints that are united to Jesus Christ their head, by his Spirit and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.
II. Saints, by profession, are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion, as God offers opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.
There is a lot of great ideas in there. But the main one I want you to see is that we are duty bound to look after each other to the extent that the Christians around you are in need and to the extent that we can actually help them. The reverse is also true, we should be ok with receiving help and asking for it, from our fellow Christians. Earlier you read the one another’s. Which ones stand out to you? These commands are not the only ones that cover our lives together. Can you think of any others? 1 Thess 5: 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. In the end our church is a community, and loving your neighbour is 50% of God’s moral law!
Here’s some wisdom then, if you want to love the folks in church – get to know them! Paul seems to think a lot of these laws we have been reading about tonight should be focused on Christians first. He says so in Galatians 6:10, let us do good to all people especially those who belong to the people of God’.
In Trinity our church is divided into two districts, north and south where people should try to get know to each other more and better, we have prayer meetings, bible studies and of course we meet to worship God and fellowship afterwards every single Sunday, and some Sundays we even eat together. It’s simply not possible to care for each other if we are not willing to spend some time with each other and get to know each other. In the past Christian communities shared the same geographical area and Christians would simply meet our fellow church goers during the week -this is not the case anymore.
Note too that we care for the inward and outward man. Which is the say that we help each other spiritually as well. The main way we do this is by coming to church on Sundays to worship God and hear from his word by a man called to minister to us. So helping Sunday happen is a way we can care for each other. At the moment in Trinity we have a team that opens up and welcomes people, we have team of musicians and singers to help with our music, we have a team for the computer and slides we have a team for tea and coffee and we have a team for our Sunday school. Maybe you could help with one of these?
Ok, but considering all we have said tonight about God’s moral law and freedom… let me ask you this- is there a commandment in the bible that you must be a child-protection designated person? No. But must we not steal or commit adultery? Yes. Is there a commandment that you must play the piano on Sundays? No. But there is one that God must be worshipped? Yes. What this means is that we want you to help us if you can come to our various meetings or do the things this church needs done to get Sunday done. We can’t be a functioning community without them. But these things cannot become more important than loving God and loving his people. The most important thing you will do as a member of our church is: love God and love your neighbour in the ways he wants us too, every. Single. Day. Of. Your. Life.
Go for it!
[i] 1 10th cause you are coveting something that isn’t for you, 1st cause you are putting food before God, 9th cause you are lying to yourself that this is good. 6th cause its bad for your life 8th cause you are stealing from others.
[ii] 1st cause God tells you to pray so you are breaking a direct commandment. 2nd especially as its breaking the 2nd about worship and the 3rd as its disrespects God.
Week 4
Going on with God. – Growing in holiness and assurance through the means of grace
Someone read to me Ps 51 verse 1-12.
Now we see there David who is known for his great faith but in this instance, we see him in a moment of great guilt. How does he deal with this guilt? Well, he depends on the truth of God’s presence in his life even when he feels as he does and because of his faith he calls out to God, for God to not take away his presence and restore to him the Joy of salvation. Now this story illustrates two things. One we need to fight against sin in our lives! And two we need to grow in our understanding of (or at the very least come back and be reminded of) God’s great love for us and all the various truths that are in the fact of our salvation.
Tonight, we are going to look start looking at the so-called means of Grace, they are God’s word, the Sacraments and prayer. These are God’s chosen ways of helping us to grow in holiness, (to become better Christians in other words) and also to grow in our assurance of His love. Before we look at the means of Grace in detail let’s look at these ideas of becoming holier and assurance of his love. (sanctification is the theological term for becoming holier)
Chapter 13 Sanctification.
1. Those who are effectually called and regenerated have a new heart and a new spirit created in them. They are additionally sanctified, actually and personally, by the power of Christ’s death and resurrection and by his word and Spirit dwelling in them. The power of sin ruling over the whole body is destroyed, and the desires of the old self are more and more weakened and killed. At the same time the ability to practice true holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, is brought to life and strengthened by all the saving graces.
So what that is saying that when you become a real Christian, that is when the Spirit of God starts to live in you, God gives us a new heart and spirit we have power to change for the better.
Question: In the years or months, you have been living as a Christian have you seen yourself change?
2. This sanctification works in the whole person, but not completely or perfectly in this life. The old sinful nature retains some of its control in body, mind, and spirit. And so a continual and irreconcilable war goes on in every believer. The old nature tries to get its way in opposition to the Spirit, and the Spirit fights to assert its authority over the flesh.
Now any questions on that? What that is saying is basically this: There is always going to be a fight within you to do things you shouldn’t. Even the greatest saint in the world feels the pull of sin every day of their life. Don’t feel discouraged by the presence of temptation. Specific temptations may go away for a while but never totally.
3. Although the old nature temporarily wins battles in this warfare, the continual strengthening of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ enables the regenerate nature in each believer to overcome. And so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Any questions on that? Again, this is fairly standard bible teaching. The Spirit of God helps us to fight sin. Over the years we will see a greater maturity in us. Not that temptation will stop coming but rather that we will learn better how to say no and how to repent quicker and be more honest with ourselves and God. On the whole we need you to see that sin is a constant and pervasive thing in our lives but God will help us fight it.
In all relationships love is a sure key, proverbs tells us it is the key to success these words: Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. In life and surely in the fight against sin, love is also key, specifically the love of God. And so we must next turn to this idea of growing in the knowledge of God’s love for us, or as our confession calls it “assurance”.
Chapter 18 The Assurance of Grace and Salvation
1. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and fleshly presumptions that they are in God’s favor and in a state of salvation, this hope of theirs will perish. Nevertheless, those who truly believe on the Lord Jesus, love him sincerely, and strive to live in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, a hope that shall never make them ashamed.
Ok so any questions on that? Well that is saying is that if you truly believe in Jesus, and live for him you can be assured that God loves you and you are going to heaven when you die.
2. This certainty is not merely a conjectural and probable persuasion grounded on a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith, founded on the divine truth of the promises of salvation, on the evidence in our hearts that the promised graces are present, and on the fact that the Spirit of adoption witnesses with our spirits that we are God’s children. The Holy Spirit, by whom we are sealed for the day of redemption, is the pledge of our inheritance.
The sense that God loves us and that we are going to heaven comes from three things : the truths of bible teaching, a sense within our own hearts that we can see God moving in our life and a sort of secret inner witness that the Holy Spirit gives us.
3. This infallible assurance does not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and contend with many difficulties before he partakes of it. Yet, because he is enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given to him by God, he may—without any extraordinary revelation—attain this assurance by a proper use of the ordinary means. It is therefore the duty of everyone to be very diligent in making certain that God has called and chosen him. By such diligence his heart may grow in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties which obedience to God requires—the proper fruits of this assurance. Thus it is far from inclining men to carelessness.
There will be times when this sense of God’s love and salvation is shaken and it may not even come straight away but if we use the means of Grace (which we have yet to talk about!) this assurance will come. Why would we focus on this sense of assurance so much? Because with it we grow in peace, joy, love for and thankfulness to God and strength and cheerfulness in obedience! Assurance of God’s love and his salvation is THE POWER we need to keep going.
We must add here too that there is an argument made sometimes that churches and ministers should focus on helping the poor, fighting injustice, changing society etc.. however these things are actions that all Christians should do (where they can and without ignoring their duties to themselves and their families and the worship of God) these things in their own lives and they are free to organise together if they wish to do these things together. But the church is a spiritual organisation and its job is to teach the bible, teach the gospel of salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, administer the sacraments and disciple its people. Thee greatest thing that will change the world are Christians full of the love joy peace thankfulness to and with plenty of strength and cheerfulness in doing good!
4. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation shaken, diminished, or temporarily lost in various ways: as by negligence in preserving it, by falling into some special sin which wounds the conscience and grieves the Spirit, by some sudden or violent temptation, or by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance and allowing even those who reverence him to walk in darkness and have no light. Yet, true believers are never completely deprived of that seed of God and life of faith, that love for Christ and fellow believers, that sincerity of heart and conscience concerning duty, out of which—by the operation of the Spirit—this assurance may in due time be revived; and by which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair.
That last thing to say is that our sense of God’s love and our salvation does ebb and flow. We can, with our sin lose this sense, God may withdraw for a while for his purposes but in the end it will never leave us entirely.
Now there is an awful lot in these paragraphs. But what I want you to see tonight is that assurance of God’s love is a thing that grows and can ebb and flow in our lives but it is crucial to our lives as Christians. We need to know that we are saved and in God’s family. The greater our knowledge that this is true is a blessing to us and is an encouragement to us to be better Christians.
So then we finally come to talking about how does God helps us fight sin and how does God increase our assurance of his love and our salvation? The answer is: through what we call the means of Grace, and they are his word, sacraments and prayer. Now we are going to talk about sacraments next week so tonight is about word and prayer.
Sabbath + Scripture
Why am I talking about Sabbath here? Did I not just say that the Word of God is a means of Grace? I did but when we interact with God’s word what we are doing is worshipping God and the main place we worship is on the sabbath (i.e. Sunday)
But before we even get to Sunday, we must mention that we all worship privately every day. Or we should! You’ve probably heard of the phrase a quiet time? This refers to a time of personal prayer and bible reading. I would heartily recommend it. I try to read two chapters of the bible every day. It’s a great benefit to me. I usually combine it with a time of prayer and sometimes even singing! Furthermore, in the last few years I’ve started to try and do this with anyone who lives with us, mostly that is my family but occasionally we have guests too.
Question: have you got a plan for reading the bible? Do you read it regularly?
Definitely we want you to read the bible and pray (and even sing!) every day. That will be good for you and honour God, but throughout history the number one place Christians interacted with God’s word was when they met to worship once week. As you know this is called the Sabbath.
In a sense the Sabbath is a pretty simple command of God, time must set apart to worship God. This is a pattern we see from the very beginning of creation where God paused from his work after the 6th day. This pattern has then observed by God’s people since then, indeed, the pattern of resting periodically is a world-wide phenomenon. However, the Lord has commanded that people don’t just rest but worship him on this day.
There is a lot we could say here and talk about, the extent to which we must worship during the day for instance is a big discussion amoungst, but all Christians agree that Sunday is for worshipping God and acts of mercy (i.e. doing good for those who need it) and this should be adhered to except where you have something to do that is necessary. Necessary things are work that cannot be avoided on the day.
The main thing though is that on the Sabbath we worship God and we do so utilising and guided by, his scriptures. Most Christians will say that when we worship there are some necessary elements, these are: the Reading of scripture, Preaching, Sacraments, Prayer, Congregational singing, (and even occasionally making vows.) All of these things will help us to grow in faith, because as we are doing them they bring us in contact with God’s word. Our assurance of God’s love is grown by the Holy Spirit through the word of God, our sanctification is sharpened as we learn more of what God expects of us and more of his power and forgiveness. Paul says in Roman’s 10 that faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. This is why or though we do read the bible in our worship, preaching is the highest part of our worship.
You might say, ok, so there is a lot of the word of God at a worship service but why does Sunday in particular have such a priority for us? Well whereas every Christian has the ability to read and understand the bible not every Christian is called to be your minister and so one of the things that sets apart Sunday is that, you have been given, by God, a man called to be your minister. Can someone read please Hebrews 5:11-6:2
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about cleansing rites, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
There we see that there are basic things in the Christian faith. The writer is annoyed that it looks like his readers have not moved on from learning the basics to maturity and need to learn them again. But what are the things he includes in the fundamentals of the faith? “repentance from dead works” “faith towards God” “instruction about baptisms” “the laying on of hands” “the resurrection of the dead” “eternal judgment”. That might not be the list you’d draw up, but it’s a God-given list. I hope most of those are somewhat familiar to you but there is one that probably isn’t. The laying on of hands describes the process by which individuals are marked out for office in the church. Moses laid hands on Joshua (Deut 34:9). The apostles laid hands on deacons (Acts 6:6). The prophets and teachers laid hands on Barnabas and Saul (13:3). The presbytery laid hands on Timothy (1 Tim 4:14; 2 Tim 1:6). The act of laying hands on someone expresses the church’s solemn recognition that that individual now acts with Christ’s authority; it isn’t something to be done in a rush (1 Tim 5:22). It marks people out as church officials, who are to be emulated (Heb 13:7) and obeyed (Heb 13:17). The writer considers this to be part of “the elementary doctrine of Christ” into which Christians are to be schooled from day one.
So then on any given Sunday you should be lead in the worship of God by a man not just with the ability or conviction but with the authority from God as well. There is a difference between a talk given by a sincere Christian and one given by a man chosen by God to give God’s word to you. Such a preacher doesn’t select himself, rather he must be appointed or sent by God through the agency of the church. In the end, wherever you worship on Sunday please know this man has been chosen for you by God to preach his word, administer the sacraments, pray for you and lead you in worship: listen carefully- God is speaking to you through his word!
In the end our faith is Sunday-centric actually. You might have heard me say in church that we can prepare the week before we take communion and also that there is something to be done before during and after communion. The same is true of Sunday as a whole, our church has been teaching this for a long time. Here’s question 160 of the Larger catechism. Take a read of it and ask yourself how different is the vision here of listening to sermons from the one you practice currently?
Q. 160. What is required of those who hear the word preached?
A. Those who hear the word preached must pay careful attention to it,1 prepare themselves2 and pray for understanding.3 They should review carefully what they hear through the Bible4 and accept the truths in it faithfully,5 lovingly,6 humbly,7 and with a ready mind,8 treating it as it is, the word of God.9 They should meditate on it,10 talk about it,11 hide it in their hearts,12 and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.13
Prayer
Prayer is of course a vital part of our Christian life and is quiet clearly a way that God gives us grace to fight temptation and grow in our assurance of his salvation.
Now there is a tendency in Christian circles to view prayer either as something that is mystical a kind of peaceful adoration or solely as a pragmatic assertive requesting, where you are just asking God for things to be done or given to you. In truth, prayer can, at times, be either of those. It can indeed be a mystical experience, but very often it’s just a simple requesting, occasionally tis both. But whatever your experience is of it – you should do it often!
Paul says we should ‘pray without ceasing’ (1 Thess 5:17). Of course that might seem impossible but what Paul means is where possible we should, do everything with a conscious reference to God. Ideally for the Christian there should be a background music , in their head, of thankfulness and request to God, behind every incident in our day.
That said , it is good to make a time of prayer a daily habit. Personally, I would recommend taking a few minutes in the morning, at midday and at night to pray.
Also, the thing that has helped me the most in my prayer life is lists. I’m often asked to pray for this or that, or I tell folks I will pray for X Y or Z. If I don’t take it down I can forget them.
As you know the Lord has also given us his prayer as a model for how we pray.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.
The elements of the Lord’s prayer are good to structure your own prayers (Address, Adoration, Advance the kingdom, Provision, Confession, Protection) but truly you can say whatever you need to say to God.
Lastly there is also a long tradition of using the bible as a stepping stone to prayer, i.e. just praying the ideas you find in your own bible reading. I will sometimes take the main idea ive heard from a sermon or a passage ive just read, turn it into a straight sentence i.e. ‘God wants me to know Jesus loves me’ and pray that for me, my family friends and congregation.
Of course it needs to be said that you will also get prayed for and with on Sunday by your minister.
In the end folks, God wants you to change. I must decrease he must increase, says John the Baptist, Owe no one anything except to love each other says Paul . We all have a lot of growing to do! For this we need knowledge of God’s love and continual grace from God. So get yourself to church every Sunday, take the sabbath to focus on him, be praying always and get yourself into the word regularly. Then the grace of God will flow to you and your assurance of his love and his truths will grow . A steady diet of this and you will grow and grow and grow.
Class 5
Going on with God 2 more means of grace
So in the last class we saw that God changes us and matures us over the years. This is what we call sanctification and it accompanies our growth in our assurance of our salvation. We saw too that the scriptures teach that this all happens by what we call God’s means of grace. Finally we learned that there are 3 means of grace: 1. The word of God; which we use to worship him- on our own, with our families and on Sunday (which is led by a man called by God to minister to us ) 2. Prayer and 3. and lastly, the sacraments.
We are going to look at sacraments tonight.
Sacraments
The catechism defines a sacrament as a ‘holy ordinance instituted by Christ wherein by, sensible signs Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented sealed and applied to believers’ (SC92). To break this down, what we mean is that a sacrament is some ordinary thing (bread, wine or water) set apart by God from its normal use for a special purpose. So normally we eat bread for food but God has set it apart for another job. We should say too that sensible there means that it is sensory, in other words you can see them, taste them, feel them, taste them, even hear them at times!
God not only provides help by engaging our thoughts i.e. preaching and teaching but through sensory means as well. The truth is that we are weak beings, even after we are born again we need every available help, so the Lord in his mercy has given us these ‘pictures’ of the gospel which work not only with our minds but with our senses as well.
But how do they help us? Well, their purpose is to represent seal and apply the benefits of the new covenant to us.
What does all that mean?
Well firstly consider this: God has been dealing with his chosen people through different covenants since he created us. There is one big covenant that covers how he choose a people for salvation out of sin and misery. We call this big covenant, the covenant of Grace. Through-out the rest of history God administers this covenant of grace through other covenants. The covenant with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses with David and now lastly the so-called New Covenant. And with each successive covenant more of the grace of God is revealed. Bible scholars say that the New Covenant is the last administration of the covenant of grace where we see the clearest expression of God’s salvation. To put it another way, the New Covenant is the clearest expression of the gospel that we see in the bible. God has always been saving people but now with the death and resurrection of Christ the Gospel is clearer and simpler than it ever has been.
The benefits of the gospel are many, forgiveness of sins, power over sin in our own lives, fellowship with God, fellowship with other Christians and life eternal. Sacraments then, represent seal and apply these benefits to us.
Specifically when we say the sacraments represent the benefits of the New Covenant we mean that they symbolise what Christ has done for us in the gospel. Like the way Baptism symbolises the removal of sin as one would when they are washed. ( I should add here that sometimes people use the word ‘sign’ instead of represent.)
When we say the sacraments seal the benefits of the New Covenant we mean that they confirm the realities they represent to us, so our faith that Jesus did die for us, our faith that we are forgiven by God is confirmed. Just like a wax seal on the back of letter confirms that this is a letter from such and such a person, the sealing aspect of the sacrament confirms that this it does what it says it does.
Lastly when we say the sacraments apply the benefits of the New Covenant we mean that for those who have faith the sacraments work a spiritual effect in us who use them. When we think back on our baptism or when we take communion God does something in the spiritual realms to encourage us to believe in the truth of what is represented. Without faith, the Lord’s supper is just a meal, apart from faith the water of baptism only removes dirt from the body (1 Peter 3:21), however with faith these symbols have real effect on us.
Here’s a handy outline:
Represent/Sign = points to Christ and his work and the benefits of this
Seal = personalises the promises “what this signifies is true!”
Applied = personally receiving the benefits
With that overview let’s look at both sacraments a little closer.
Baptism.
There can be no doubt the Presbyterian and Reformed churches view of Baptism goes against the currents! In most evangelical churches believer’s baptism is practiced, that is that after a person of reasonable age, comes to faith they are baptised as a symbolic act of their faith in Christ. Peter says in Acts 2:38 ‘repent and be baptised’ therefore some say you should just believe in Christ, then and only then should you get baptised. Simple! Not only is this thinking the view held in most evangelical churches but even in catholic circles, in Ireland today, you will commonly hear that baptising a child is wrong as it is something that should be left for themselves to decide when they are older. So we have most evangelicals reading the bible in a way that makes baptism a subsequent act to coming to faith and we have a surrounding culture that places a heavy emphasis on individualism and making your own choices.
What to say to all of this? The reason our church baptises both new adult converts AND the children of believers is actually quite simple. We believe this is what the bible teaches!. There is actually an awful lot of biblical data about baptism, it is not a small obscure subject but one which, in various ways, pops up many times- certainly more than communion.
So what is Baptism? Well, it is a ceremonial cleansing ritual that signs, seals and later after they comes to faith – applies what Christ does for his people. In the Old Testament the washing that made people clean after ritual impurity, and the washing that cleansed the implements used in temple worship were called baptism . So baptism was well known to the Jews. It was a cleansing ceremony. This is why Jews weren’t asking John the Baptist what a baptism was- they knew what a baptism was -they had plenty of examples. It was also an initiation ritual, it was to replace circumcision which was the sign of entrance into the people of God – we will talk about that in a minute.
Baptism then is a ceremonial purification and initiation ritual. And what the ritual symbolises is really rather simple. Just as the pure water comes into contact with us, we can come can come into contact with the pure and Holy Jesus through contact with the Holy Spirt and just as the waters clean us so Christ cleans us with his blood.
To make the case for the Presbyterian view of baptism. We need to clear the ground a little first. Its important to note that we believe that the church is a mixed community, made up of regenerate (or saved people) (or you could call them true Christians) and unregenerate people, those who are not really Christians but only say they are. Not all who call themselves Christians truly are. Not all Israel is Israel says Paul. The church has wheat and tares (Mat 13), good branches and bad ones (John 15), those who said ‘Lord Lord did I not do this and that ’ but Christ will say to them I did not know you. (Mat 7:22) . See too the example of the false prophets in 2 Pet 2:1, or those in Hebrews 10:26 who had ‘received the knowledge of the truth’ but kept on sinning and now are awaiting the judgment of God and especially those in Hebrews 6:4 who ‘had been enlightened, had tasted the heavenly gift, who shared in the Holy Spirit and who tasted the word of God but have now fallen away’.
The reason we start with this idea is that once you accept a mixed community of God (just like there was in the OT) you can see that a sacrament which (amoungst other things) marks your entrance into the people of God does not necessarily mean you have faith or even that you will come to faith. The best example of this is Esau. He was Abraham’s great grandson. He was circumcised, he was a child of the covenant and yet he was not saved. In fact, we are told that God hated him (Rom 9:13) So he had undergone the initiation ritual- circumcision, he was a part of the people of God…but he was not part of the true people of God.
Our Baptist Christian friends will often point out that there is no clear evidence of babies or young children being baptised in the NT. That is not quite true, there are at least 4 mentions of entire households being baptised where it was very likely that there was infants and young children present. However we are not told who is in those households. Remember that this was a time before contraception and a time when children were needed, else who would look after you when you were old and weak?
Ok but none the less why are the children of believers baptised? Well, as we have seen the people of God in the Old Testament was a mixed community of true believers and hypocrites. But all were given the sign of initiation into the community. In the Old Testament that sign was circumcision. This ceremony involved the cutting off of the foreskin of the penis. It was a bloody and painful sign of entrance into God’s community. God said to Abraham in Gen 17:11 that it was a sign of God’s covenant with him and his descendants. But it also represented blessing as well as curse, because, just as the foreskin was cut off, the whole person would be cut off from God if they did not keep the rules of the covenant. To that end God asked them not only to be physically circumcised but to have their hearts circumcised (Deut 30:6). Paul says in Romans 2:29 “A Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.” So even in the OT circumcision was a physical event that symbolised the need of a spiritual event.
How do we know that baptism is the sign for initiation into the people of God now rather than circumcision? Well in Colossians chapter 2 Paul says the following. ‘In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having being buried with him in Baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God…. Each phrase in this sentence is kind of hard to understand but to understand it you just need to know that in the OT circumcision was a sign and seal of what God had promised to his people and also a symbol of what was expected of them. The whole ceremony reminded the Israelites of God’s promises to them but also just as the foreskin was cut off so too should the hearts of God’s people be cut off from the world i.e. fully dedicated to him. For Paul then, one of the reasons we don’t need to circumcise ourselves now is because we have all that was symbolised by circumcision by the fact that at one time we were baptised and then we came to faith. For Paul baptism functions now as a circumcision did, it was a sign of all God’s promises, a sign of entrance or initiation into the community of God, but very importantly just like those who were circumcised in the OT they needed to come to faith and have their hearts circumcised. We then who are baptised need to come to faith and receive all that is symbolised by the washing with water.
So we definitely don’t need to be circumcised anymore but we do still need a sign of entrance into God’s community and a sign of the blessings that is there for us who are in who come to faith. Baptism then is now the new sign and seal of being a part of God’s community.
Some other things can be said to make the case for our view of baptism.
1 Cor 7:14 calls the children of a mixed marriage between a believer and an unbeliever ‘holy’. This is an astounding statement if children are unregenerate as Baptist theology teaches.
In Ephesians and Colossians Paul directly addresses children and gives them commands yet in both letters he opens with addressing it to the ‘saints’ in Colossae or Ephesus.
Also in Ephesians (6:1) Paul tells kids to obey their parents ‘in the lord’ similar to his teaching on only marrying in the Lord, he clearly recons kids are part of the covenant community.
Lastly Jesus actually says to the children he blesses that the kingdom belongs to these. His point isn’t just about childlike faith but that children belong to the kingdom.
Three more points need to said. Firstly, it should be clear by now too that not all who are a part of the community of God are truly Christians. Therefore, not all who receive the sign of baptism will go onto have faith. However, this does not mean that it doesn’t have any effect on the person. Baptism can be a sign of blessing to those with faith but a curse to those who do not. The warning passages in the book of Hebrews come into play here. A person who is brought up in the church but rejects the cross and Christ which baptism points them to is under a larger penalty.
Secondly one of the biggest blessings of baptism is …your Christians parents (and your church family). They are bound to raise up you to one day come to faith in the promises made over you in your baptism. In one way this side of baptism is the way in which you will see the effect the most. Your parents and church want you to see the promises of baptism as being true, and they will help you in this.
Lastly what does baptism do for us now? Or to put it another way. How then is baptism a means of grace for us after it has happened? It is a memorial device that the Spirit of God use to feed us when, with faith, we believe the promises it represents. You may have felt particularly guilty today, but if you remember your baptism you can say with certainty Christ died to wash me of my sins. God does not hold these against me. You might wonder if you are truly a Christian and going to heaven, you can remember your baptism and say I am a part of the church and all that is true of those people is true of me- I was washed of my sins -I am going to heaven!
If we see our Baptism as essentially a package of promises to us -that are true! Ones that we can trust, then the reminder that we were baptised can become a spiritual spur in times when we are low, an encouragement when we are facing temptation and a badge to live to up too when we are under pressure. Martin Luther apparently would roar out loud “I am a baptized man”! anytime he faced doubts or temptations. May we find the same source of comfort in this sacrament.
Communion (the Lord’s supper/the Lord’s table)
The gospels present the Lord’s Supper as the NT fulfilment of a number of OT ceremonies. Firstly the Passover, was one of the sacrificial meals of the OT (cf Matt 26:17-29, Mk 14:12-25, Lk 22:7-22) . The Passover involved sacrificing and eating a lamb and spreading its blood on the doorframes of a home as an act to appeasement to God as he brought judgement on all those who lived in Egypt. The Egyptians had all their firstborn children and animals killed on that night, whilst the Israelites were passed-over and soon-after they were brought out of slavery and into the promised land. Secondly, in the Mosaic ceremonial laws, there was numerous sacrifices that involved killing an animal, giving a portion to the priest and eating the rest. This way the people enjoyed fellowship with God through eating and lastly there is the story of God providing his people with heavenly bread the so-called manna. In the NT, Jesus is the fulfilment of these foreshadowing’s. He is the true Passover Lamb who turns away the wrath of God (Cf 1 Cor 5:7) He is also the fulfilment of all the mosaic code of laws (cf Heb 10:1-7) who brings us into constant fellowship with God. He is also the true bread of life the feeds us spiritually. All of this he becomes because of his perfect life and death and we celebrate communion with these things in mind because the night before he died he had a Passover meal with his disciples but he reinterpreted the meal to be about him and his death with these words: ‘This is my body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of me. In the same way after supper he took the Cup saying ‘this cup that is poured out for you is the new Covenant in my blood’.
Ok so communion has to do with remembering Christ and all he did and all he got for us by his death and resurrection but is it just about remembering?
Some take these words here to mean that the bread and wine actually change in substance to become flesh and blood, this is the Roman Catholic view. For Catholics communion is an actually physical meeting with God. Then a lot of evangelicals would say that Christ is only speaking figuratively here, in other words, the bread and the wine represent Christ’s Body and blood and nothing more. For evangelicals communion really is just an act where we remember what Jesus has done.
The Presbyterian church however would say that Jesus is speaking figuratively and spiritually. We look to 1 Cor 10:16 where Paul says ‘the cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ, the bread that we break is it not a participation in the body of Christ’. There is a very clear spiritual act happening when taking part in communion. Those who have faith, by the power of the Holy Spirit are in some way being united to Christ and receiving more of the benefits of his death and resurrection. For Presbyterians communion is more than just an act of remembrance and though we do meet God, we do so in the spiritual realm, by faith. For us then communion a means of grace by miraculous means. God gives us grace in communion.
This is not an easy thing to understand but we know that Christ has fulfilled the Passover, we know that God wants to help us in this life and we know that Christ has called himself the bread of life. Communion then is one of the means of Grace for us today, it helps us remember that Christ has paid for all our sins, and it increases the benefits of his work for us by a spiritual union with him, when, by faith we partake of the sacrament when it is offered.
One last thing. Communion is not just looking back to Christ and his cross and tomb…but also forward. The Lord’s table is a table that we will all sit at one day, with all the saints throughout history. The great marriage supper of the Lamb. When we take communion we are also remembering the future.
Who should take communion?
Communion should firstly only be taken by those who are baptised. Those who belong to the community of faith are those who have been baptised, in the OT you could only participate in the Passover after you had been circumcised. And as we saw earlier circumcision was the OT version of baptism.
Secondly you should only take communion when you are willing to be publicly identified with Christ. Paul says in 1 Cor 11:26, ‘when you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’. Taking communion is effectively a statement that you belong to Christ, you have thrown your lot in with him and all that entails. This is one reason why communion is first given to those who have undergone some teaching so they know what they are getting themselves into and can take it willingly and with a clear conscience.
Thirdly, communion needs to be taken after some self-examination. Paul says in 1 Cor 11 ‘Whoever then eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgement on himself.’ Now immediately some will say I can’t take communion -I’m unworthy! I’ve done x y z and I’m not a good Christian! Indeed, we are all sinners. But that is not a bar to communion! In fact, if after self-examination you realise your many faults, then communion is especially for you. The key phrase is ‘discerning the body’. This could refer to either body of the church or the body of Christ. Most theologians will say that Paul is referring to both here. In other words, if you have a problem within your community or if you have a problem with Jesus or his teaching, you probably should not take it until you get those sorted. So sin in our lives is not a bar to us taking communion -otherwise none of us could take it! -but if you are continuing to sin and refusing to be made right with God or your fellow Christians, then, you shouldn’t take it.
This self-examination then is firstly to help us see if we should take it but it also functions to prepare us to take it.
Preparing before any time we take communion is a good thing. The more we prepare (usually) the more we get out of it. To prepare we should take time to see how are doing in our faith by asking ourselves similar questions to seeing if we should take it. Questions like:
- Are we trusting in the promises made true for us by Christs work on the cross,
- Are there areas of sin we are struggling in?
- How is our love for God and neighbour?
One good tool is to go through our churches shorter catechism’s teaching on Christ (Q’s 21-38) and the law of God (Q’s 39-81). And see where we are doing well in and not doing well in believing and following Christ
We can then take these concerns and thanks to the table.
Lastly how then should we take it?
By faith in the promises attached to it, with a period of self-examination, with a realisation this marks you out as a Christian. I would add that before you come the self-examination could be done, during the ceremony you can continue to think of all these and use the words said and meaning behind the symbols used and afterwards you see if your preparation and participation could have been done better. This will help you have a more meaning full communion every time.
Class 6 ‘Distinctives of our church’
So, you will have heard me say at the start that we need folks to be (as best we can tell ) true Christians to take communion, of course there are many different types of Christians. This is a Presbyterian church, so to take communion you have to be a Christian but you don’t have to be a Presbyterian.
The difference between ourselves and other churches is found in how we run the church and in some of the things we believe. So, that is what we are going to look at tonight.
Elders and Presbyteries and Assemblies
Firstly, how does this church run things?
You will remember that God has called some men to be your minister and your elders, these men are ordained to the job, called by God essentially to a have a degree of authority in your life, you will also will remember we have said that the church, through its elders has been given power by Christ the so called “keys of the kingdom” which is basically the right of the church to decide who can join the church or not, similarly the church again through its elders has the right to remove folks from the church. Christ gave initially gave this authority to the Apostles. He didn’t give it to everyone. At that time Jesus at the time had a small crowd of followers but this authority was not given to all of them.
Most churches believe that this apostolic authority was then transferred to the leadership of the church after they died. The disagreements between different churches arises around how to exercise this authority.
Broadly speaking there are three types of running a church in operation across the world today.
Firstly, there is what is called Episcopalian government. This is where one person (usually called a bishop) is in charge over a geographic area. It’s an exaggeration to say that what he says- goes, but it’s not far off it! Often but not always, there will be also be another one bishop who has authority over all the other bishops. Some of you will know this style of government because that’s how the church of Ireland and England and of course the Roman Catholic church run things. And there is an attractiveness to this method as there is a clear chain of command and decisions can be made by the bishop with relative ease.
The second type of government is the one which is used in most evangelical churches and this is congregationalism. This is where the congregation is independent of other churches, the church might internally recognise various leadership roles, such as pastor or elder but whatever leadership decisions it makes itself it can never be dictated too by other churches in matters or doctrine or morality. The strength of this method is that the congregation indeed free to forge its own path and can move very quickly ahead with a plan. It is also a particularly attractive view especially when many denominations often tend towards heresy or some other sort of problematic views.
Presbyterians disagree with both of the above. Contra the Episcopalians we believe the authority of the apostles was transferred to elders in each congregation. Not just to one man. For example, someone read Acts 20:17 and then verse 28. Further we believe that congregations are not independent of each other but they are connected.
In Acts 15:1-30, we read the story of the so-called Jerusalem council, here we see both principles at work. Can some read this for me.
This is the first general assembly of elders. What we saw there is that it was convened to deal with the heresy of the Judaizers, these were folk who wanted to impose certain aspects of the Mosaic Law as a condition for salvation. This council included representatives from different churches. When Paul and Barnabas who represented the churches in Asia Minor came to Jerusalem they were welcomed by the church (vv 2-4), then the council debated the issue (v7), came to an agreement (vv19-21) and implemented their decision through a circular letter (vv22-30). This council or elders ruled on a vital doctrinal matter that affected the whole church. If it was only a voluntary meeting then heresy could have been tolerated in some local or regional churches. So, permitting rather than requiring broader assemblies has the potential to compromise accountability in church. All in we see the elements of the Presbyterian system here. And this is one reason why we use it.
Church government is not something that people talk about that much! And as we said before there are somethings you need to believe to be a Christian. This is not one of them. That said, we believe it is in the bible and we should teach it and use it. A good phrase that sums up this tension is that this doctrine is good for the well-being of the church but it’s not necessary for the existence of the church, there are, as you know, many healthy churches of all types of church governance.
Presbyterian church government has the following principles:
The Power to choose its officers lies with the people. Not the pope (Catholicism) , not in a collection of bishops (Anglicanism) or even in a collection of clergy (Methodists) but in the people. No man can come into to office except he is called to that office and invested with authority by the ordinary folk of the church. Christ then, ultimately rules through his people not by a group or even through a single person.
Power is administered by representatives of people. Our church is run by representatives voted in by the people. So neither are we a pure democracy beholden to the voice of everyone always.
There is only one class of officers. We are ruled by elders of two types, there are teaching elders and ruling elders. Teaching elders are called ministers and while they have special honour they have no higher rank and no superior authority. All elders do the work of running the church and they do it together.
Officers rule together in assemblies. Though all churches have tasks that need to be done by its elders like preaching and leading worship; all legislative and judicial tasks are done together. We don’t have the ability to make decisions without the input of other elders from other churches.
Assemblies are grouped together for even wider areas to be ruled and the whole area has one assembly which is over all of them. Every year representatives meet together to make decisions which affect the whole island of Ireland. This is called our General Assembly . Our church has also has 19 regional assemblies which are called presbyteries.
Everyone has the right to complain about every decision of their leaders and appeal decisions they don’t like. Everyone who has a problem can appeal to the presbytery and even to the General Assembly if needed.
Our denominations structure.
In the PCI how this looks like is that firstly we have elders who rule together in what we call a session. Session is a just a traditional word that comes from Latin meaning to sit. So, the idea is we sit down and we talk and pray and make decision for our church.
Each session looks after the spiritual wellbeing of the people within its congregation and each congregation has a parish that it aims to reach out to with the Gospel. Our parish covers most of cork and all of Kerry!
Above the session, the next level of authority is called the presbytery, just as Paul wrote the churches in Galatia and treated them all as one, we have regional groupings as well. Our presbyteries meet 5 times a year, sometimes more, and they are attended by one elder and the minister of each congregation
They are able to make decisions which affect the local congregation as long as they don’t change any doctrine. We have 19 presbyteries on the island of Ireland. Our congregation is in one called the Dublin and Munster Presbytery. There are 27 congregations including ourselves in it.
After the presbyteries, we have, like the Jerusalem council a meeting of all the churches. We have this annually and we call it the general assembly. This is made up of every minister active and retired plus one elder from each congregation plus a few other elders who have positions of authority within the larger church.
When the general assembly meets, quite a lot of its business is taken up with hearing reports from differing councils within the church. Each report usually makes recommendations on how the church should conduct its business. These are then voted on with a simple majority needed to pass. However, if something is recommended that is a serious matter then such an action needs to be ‘sent down to the presbyteries’ for their approval. This means that things like where doctrine is being talked about, the general assembly can’t make a decision without the presbyteries approving. This way power is not concentrated in one meeting of the church but is spread out through many.
Sometimes folk from outside our church are very interested in how we run things. Most Irish people are used to the RCC which has an Episcopalian system, and many do not like it! Others find the congregationalism of evangelical churches suspicious, all to say that the Presbyterian system is appealing to some Irish! Do feel free to tell them about it if you get the chance. Lastly if they can’t understand you, tell them it’s run the same way as the GAA: Club – County – Province, and a general council every year 😊.
What we believe. / Confessions n Catechisms
Our church belongs to a stream of theology called the ‘Reformed’ tradition. This refers to a movement that began in the 1500’s where people thought that the church at the time, what we now call the Roman Catholic Church had strayed from the original teachings of the apostles in matters of belief worship and governance. They wanted to reform the church. This period of history is then call the reformation. Sometime those who trace their history to this event are called protestants.
Protestants disagree with the Roman Catholic church in two main areas. That is that we do not believe as Rome teaches that a person is saved from hell by having faith and doing good works but rather, we believe that we are saved by faith in Christ alone. Secondly , we believe that truth about God is to be decided by the scriptures alone rather than as Rome teaches that truth is decided by listening to the teaching office of the catholic church as it reads scripture, along with its own tradition.
The reformers did not think they were creating a new religion but one that went back the original teachings of the apostles. And for the next 100 years or so after the reformation (starting in 1518) they wrote what we call ‘confessions’. These are detailed explanations of the teaching of the bible.
The Presbyterian church in Ireland uses as its confession the Westminster Confession of Faith, this is one of the last great reformed confessions and represents what could be called its mature theology. Nearly all Presbyterian churches around the world have this as their confession. Now, it must be pointed out that most evangelical churches have a 12-to-15-point doctrinal statement. Our church has a 33-chapter 12,000-word document! While it’s true that each ‘chapter’ has on average only about 3 paragraphs that is still significantly more words than other churches. We do this because Jesus says that we are to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them everything I commanded you. The theological minimalism of many of our brothers and sisters in other churches may be fine when we are on a mission to seek converts but at times like ours; where our faith is increasingly under challenge from the dominant philosophies of the day; if want also to make good disciples then maybe it’s time to experiment again with a theological maximalism, so that we are not just acquainted with the fundamental truths but thoroughly versed in the breadth and depth of biblical teaching. And an acquaintance with our confession will do just that.
Besides the WCF our church also has two catechisms. The larger and shorter catechism. These are two documents which aim to teach people the content of our faith. By summarising the main points into a series of questions and answers that folks would then learn off by heart. The theory was that the larger catechism was for use in churches and families and the shorter catechism was for children.
Can someone read Acts 18:25. In the early church ‘catechesis’ became the normal way of instructing adult converts after baptism and was also used for children baptized as infants to be a course of instruction culminating in their first Lord’s Supper. The scriptures clearly portray the need for ‘instruction in the way of the Lord’ (acts 18:25). Catechisms are one way to do just that. And that is why we have them.
All that said are there any distinctive doctrines that Presbyterians believe that other Christians don’t? The truth is the answer has to be no. All of the different doctrines we believe and teach are held by other churches – it’s just only the presbyterian church holds all of the ones we do! There is nothing we believe that is unique to us. However, we are known for emphasising a couple of things.
Presbyterians make a big deal out the fact that God is sovereign over everything including deciding what events happen in history even including deciding who will be saved and who won’t. This is called predestination.
Presbyterians emphasise that once you become a Christian you cannot lose your salvation. To think you can mean’s that somehow your salvation is dependent on yourself. It isn’t.
Presbyterians emphasise that we should worship God only in ways that the bible explicitly says we should. This is called the regulative principle. Hence, we when we are doing interviews in church or announcements you will often hear me say that we are taking a break from worship.
Then lastly Presbyterians emphasise that the only way we can be sure that is God is speaking to us is through the scriptures and not through feelings or visions or the words of friends or circumstances.
These are emphasises that we believe and are things that you will hear in our church. Again, you don’t have to agree with these to be Christians and many fine Christians don’t! but you do have be willing to accept that is what you will hear from the pulpit and the elders.
[i] 1 10th cause you are coveting something that isn’t for you, 1st cause you are putting food before God, 9th cause you are lying to yourself that this is good. 6th cause its bad for your life 8th cause you are stealing from others.
[ii] 1st cause God tells you to pray so you are breaking a direct commandment. 2nd especially as its breaking the 2nd about worship and the 3rd as its disrespects God.
[1] An oath is to swear with God as your witness the truth of a stamen. A vow is a promise to act in a certain way. Strictly speaking you are swearing two oaths and making two vows.
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